Friday, 23 July 2010

It's a bad news business

Some very good news today from the Office of National Statistics (this, from the BBC ):

Death rates in England and Wales are at their lowest-ever recorded levels, official figures show.

Yet again.

Despite health concerns surrounding rising levels of obesity and alcohol use, death rates for both men and women fell by about 5% in 2009 from 2008.

Could it possibly be that those health concerns have been exaggerated just a tad?

Separate research released last year predicted that babies born today in the UK and other wealthy nations could expect to live to 100.

Not that this this will stop people like David Kessler telling us that children born today will die before their parents. Never, you will note, 'younger than their parents'—which is what they actually mean. They deliberately leave the phrasing open to imply that parents will outlive their children. Either way, they're wrong and every year new life expectancy figures show that they're wrong.

But, as I mention in Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (pp. 300-303), there is a British tradition to bury these annual tidings of good news. This year they have been buried with this:

Health gap 'wider than in Great Depression'

The health inequality gap in Britain is greater than it was during the post-World War I slump and the Great Depression, a study suggests.

Guess which story the BBC is focusing on (magnifying glass required, bottom right)...

About Me

Writer and researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Blogging in a personal capacity.
Author of Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism (2015), The Art of Suppression (2011), The Spirit Level Delusion (2010) and Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009).

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."